December 2003

December 29, 2003

Turning the Corner

Back in October a leaked memo from Donald Rumsfeld predicted a "long, hard slog" in Iraq, and suggested the US lacked "metrics" to know if "we are winning or losing the global war on terror."

Some Iraq metrics to consider: According the the US military, the attacks on coalition forces have dropped from 30 in early November to 15 in December. But, according to a must-read article in this week's Newsweek, the number of daily patrols has dropped from 1,500 in November to just 500 in December.

So, perhaps rather than "turning the corner" against the guerillas, American troops are just getting more difficult to kill.

Newsweek certainly paints that picture, writing that the US Army has "pulled back into an armored shell" at bases with Pizza Huts and Burger Kings ... and *bus routes*. And when troops do venture out, "they move at speeds of more than 60mph, usually right down the middle of the road, forcing away oncoming traffic," with soldiers flipping coins to see who gets to ride shotgun.

December 21, 2003

The Wisdom Of Tom DeLay

As pontificated on the December 21st episode of Meet The Press.

• [Concerning the "situation in Iraq".] "Well, I think it's very exciting."

• "Iraq, as the president has said, is a battle in that war on terror, and we're going to fight terrorists whether it be in Israel, or Iraq, or Syria, or Afghanistan, or anywhere in the Philippines; this is a war that we're in." [Got that? Anywhere in the Philippines.]

• "Well, first, Tim, I don't accept your premise. The president didn't overemphasize weapons of mass destruction as the only reason to go into Iraq." [In Bushspeak: "What's the difference" whether he had them or not?]

• "He was violating UN resolutions for 10, almost 12 years. He violated every agreement that he made after he lost the war in Desert Storm." [Translation: no banned weapons found proves once and for all that he was violating resolutions mandating the destruction of his banned weapons...]

• "This was the Clinton administration, who wasn't exactly good on the war on terrorism." [No comment.]

• "So everybody knew that we had to have a regime change." ["Everybody", presumably, includes that 90% of the World's population opposed to the war. Does this mean that "everybody" is a Saddam apologist? No more so than anybody opposing a hypothetical war for "regime change" in the United States -- George Bush is, after all, a far, far, far greater threat to world peace that Saddam could ever conceive of being -- would want to be considered a Bush apologist. But murdering tens of thousands of people, radiating the environment, throwing the country into utter chaos, and selling off its resources to the "liberators"' cronies might -- just might -- not be the best way to go about removing Saddam (or Bush, or Sharon, or Putin, or Uribe) from office.]

• "If we don't find weapons of mass destruction -- and I think we will, and we've already found evidence that not only did he have it, but he violated United Nations resolutions all along the lines, particularly when it comes to weapons instructions. So, you know, we are winning this war on terror." [Do we have a winner for the lost-train-of-thought-slash-non-sequitur-of-the-year award? And, actually, we didn't find any evidence that he had "it". We did, though, hear plenty of credible testimony, before the war was initiated, indicating that he'd gotten rid of "it" no later than 1995.]

• "I knew that that would be the first thing the Democrats said after we got Saddam Hussein. They said, 'Oh, well, that's good we got Saddam Hussein, but you haven't gotten Osama bin Laden.' What we have gotten is we've destroyed his network. The president took the war to them in Afghanistan." [How embarrassing that the Department of "Homeland Security" raised the "terror-alert" level to "high" more less at the same time DeLay was speaking. Er, and, uh, he may have missed Aschcroft's warning of just a few months ago that, "The potential for us to be hit again is a very real potential," not to mention the warning of Western and Arab intelligence agencies from just a few weeks ago that al-Qaida had "split into dozens of autonomous, hard-to-find 'franchises'." Finally, what the fuck was Tom DeLay doing when he was supposed to be learning English grammar -- out snorting lines with George W., or something?]

• "You'd think it would come from the French or their party or from these demonstrators that demonstrate in the streets that you see. But these are supposed to be legitimate people saying some pretty outrageous things, like Wesley Clark." [Straight from the horse's mouth: the French, and the demonstrators demonstrating in the street that you see (and, one assumes, the rest of the 90% of the World opposed to the Bush Doctrine), are "illegitimate". (Though that's not how DeLay's gramatically-challenged sentence would literally decode.)]

• "If we left it up to Wesley Clark, Saddam Hussein would still be in place and he'd be paying the families of suicide bombers in Israel." [As it now stands, the American Taxpayer ponies up several billions of dollars a year in support of the Israeli occupation. (Uh, was DeLay mentioning UN resolutions before? No, didn't think so.)]

• "But they've gone over the top. I mean, Howard Dean saying that we're not safer because Saddam Hussein is out of office..." [Of course, Hussein's been "out of office" since April. But anyway, damn that Tom Ridge!]

• "If we were waiting for permission, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan." [He's right. While 90% of the World's population opposed the war on Iraq, something like 80% opposed the war on Afghanistan.]

• "Howard Dean just is an extreme extremist." [Maybe that's why Dean is so popular with the kids: he's beyond the extreme. Sadly, DeLay did not classify Dennis Kucinich's standing on the extreme-scale.]

• "Tax cuts will lower the deficit and bring us to balance. That's how we balance the budget." [No comment. Would make a nice children's song, though: "This is the way we balance the budget / Balance the Budget / Balance the Budget / This is the way we balance the Budget / Early in the morning".]

• "You cut taxes so it leaves more money in people's pockets. They save. They invest. The economy grows. And from the economy, the revenues to the government grows. It's history. It's always happened that way." [No examples given.]

• "It's how you balance the budget that's important. You know, the Democrats want to balance the budget by raising spending and raising taxes. The Soviet Union had a balanced budget. Well, you can raise taxes until you balance it, but the economy will go into the toilet. We have shown and we have credibility on the economy and the economy's recovering because of Republican policies." [No comment, except that: this motherfucker's meds are either working just a little too well or just a little too poorly. Maybe there's a puzzle-book logic problem in here somewhere: "Using only his Words of Wisdom listed below, help Tom DeLay determine his proper dosage."]

December 18, 2003

Ahead of Schedule

So David Kay is quitting. The Mr. Magoo of the Iraq Survey Group, who last July stood in front of two trailers on national TV and declared them mobile weapons labs, when they weren't, is giving up the search for WMD.

In October he issued an interim report saying no weapons had yet been found, but that it would take "six to nine months" to determine if Iraq posessed WMD. It's apparently taken only three months, which, to his credit, is significantly ahead of schedule.

Additional credit should go to the Post's Dana Priest and Walter Pincus for providing some deadpan humor to the news:

Kay requested the change for personal and family reasons, officials said. When he accepted the job in June, they said, he expected to quickly find the expansive evidence that the administration had claimed as its primary reason for going to war.

December 17, 2003

Kinda Wondering ...

... how Cheney, Rummy, and the neocons feel about this:

December 11, 2003

Worse than the ARVN. Much Worse.

Yesterday the Pentagon said more than 1/3 of the soldiers in Iraq's first batallion have already deserted. Of the 700 troops that completed training in early October only 450 remain, for a monthly desertion rate of about 20%.

At this rate the first batallion will completely disappear by ... next Friday.

UPDATE:

There are a bunch more hilarious bits inside.

December 10, 2003

With a Heavy Dose of Fear and Violence

David Rees is back from a long hiatus, and takes aim at easily the most insane, idiotic, and insanely idiotic utterance since this farce got started on March 19. (Many more inside.)

December 09, 2003

Rummy Wrong Yet Again

Rumsfeld Announces End of Afghan Combat
May 2, 2003
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that 8,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan have ended major combat operations and will shift their focus to stabilizing and rebuilding the country.

US troops launch ‘biggest-ever’ operation in Afghanistan
Dec. 8, 2003
The US military today announced its biggest-ever operation against Taliban and Al-Qaida suspects, saying it will mobilise thousands of soldiers in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan.

December 08, 2003

The Big Times

Joel Turnipseed, who wrote a Tom Friedman-esqe post for this blog last week, got an editorial published in yesterday's Los Angeles Times: "A Lack of Faith in Wartime Hero Worship" (registration required).

December 02, 2003

Postcards From Samarra

Depending on where you get your news, the incident in Samarra was either a brilliant display of US firepower, or a massacre. Or maybe both.

Here's the Rational Enquirer's take on events:

US convoys, delivering Iraqi currency to banks, were ambushed by guerrillas, but by a smaller number than the military claims. US forces responded with wild, overwhelming firepower (part of their new strategy; see Operation Iron Hammer, Ivy Cyclone II), killing a handful of insurgents but a larger number of civilians, and causing a great deal of collateral damage.

When the dust settled, the guerrillas (most of whom escaped) were planning the next ambush, mosques and kindergartens were repaired, civilians were burying their dead relatives, and hundreds of hearts and minds in Samarra were lost forever, hell bent on revenge.

And on it goes.

UPDATE: David Hackworth received an email from a commander who saw the action in Samarra, and his account is in line with the version described above, right down to the inevitable loss of hearts and minds. Highly recommended reading.

Wounded boy, in Saddam Fedayeen uniform

Grieving mother with a picture of her dead son

Grieving boy beside the grave of his 12-year-old brother

Injured 9-year-old boy

Bullet-ridden dad with his kids

Man alongside his badly injured, comatose brother